Disaster aid or disaster in making?

The level of FEMA funding Democrats are proposing now is short of the nearly $7 billion package that won the support of 10 Republicans earlier this month from disaster-struck states. Reid lowered the number in order to win Republican support, but he removed from his bill the corresponding budget cuts that House Republicans demanded to partially offset the cost of the disaster aid. Democrats claimed the budget cuts would lead to significant job losses.

To offset the emergency spending, House Republicans proposed slashing $1.5 billion from a program providing loan guarantees to produce fuel-efficient vehicles, a provision included in their initial proposal that was rejected in an embarassing defeat for Speaker John Boehner last week.

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But Boehner regrouped and added a cut worth $100 million to an Energy Department loan program that helped fund the solar energy firm Solyndra, whose bankruptcy after receiving federal grants has became a major political liability for the Obama administration. While the $100 million cut is barely a drop in the budget bucket, the revised Boehner plan won the support of 23 additional Republicans last week, and it barely passed the House by a 219-203 vote.

Furious at the proposed offsets, Reid vowed to reject the House plan, and the Senate blocked the measure Friday by a resounding 59-36 vote. All but one Democrat, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, voted to table the plan, and seven conservative Republicans jumped party lines to block the measure — though they opposed it because of concerns that the overall level of spending was too high.

Those conservative senators who opposed advancing the House plan included Marco Rubio of Florida and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, two senators who supported the nearly $7 billion disaster aid package that passed the Senate earlier this month.

Another conservative senator who backed the $7 billion for more FEMA aid was David Vitter of Louisiana, but he said he would oppose the latest Reid package.

That means Reid cannot lose another Republican who voted in favor of the disaster-relief package. The other senators include Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, who faces a potentially tough reelection bid next year, as well as Maine moderates Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Hoeven of North Dakota. Aides said Sunday their bosses were still reviewing the package, or they couldn’t be reached for comment. Those senators all voted to advance the House Republican plan last week.

With Congress now lurching toward its third budget fiasco in a matter of months, the Senate has delayed the start of a recess it had planned to hold this week in observance of the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah, which starts Wednesday at sundown. But the House has no plans so far to bring the chamber back to deal with the stalemate. And most Hill insiders expect the stalemate to be resolved given the public’s growing fury with Congress and its inability to resolve bitter disputes.

As for Congress’s 12 percent approval rating, “We can probably take it down to 8 or 7 if we keep doing what’s being done because this looks to the people back home like foot-dragging obstructionism that’s job-killing,” said Nelson, a conservative Democrat who faces reelection next year.

There are Americans who cheered the prospect of stepping over a dying man who had failed to get medical insurance. There is no reason to think they wouldn't stand by and let sink into chaos a population that had failed to protect themselves against natural disaster.

Earthquakes in California, wildfires in Texas, tornadoes in Oklahoma, hurricanes in Florida, floods in Iowa - you know they're coming, take steps now to protect yourself or move to somewhere safer.

Just end the TSA and the groping at the airports and they'll be money to use, albeit unless things change, corruptly and inefficiently, for a federal response to natural disasters. Better yet, as Ron Paul has repeatedly pointed out, end our multiple wars and there will be money for disaster response and more.

If Scott Brown loses his re-election bid it will be because he went to the senate and voted like a Democrat. The people of Taxachussetts thought they were getting someone who was going to spend their money wisely when they elected him. What a bitter disappointment he has been. He's probably so pretty boy stupid that if he loses he'll think it was because he wasn't liberal enough. People aren't going to be excited about voting and volunteering for him this time. That said, he'll be better than Elizabeth Warren.

A Scott Brown Republican is just a Democrat in disguise. Good luck Mr Male Model, you'll need it.

We elect our public employees to serve their constituents, not to play political games. Republicans should start learning how to govern and pass the bill so that the disaster aid flows, and the communities harmed can rebuild. If the storm had decimated Kentucky, would O'Connell be stalling? He would be fighting to get money sent today to his state.

Harry Reid and the Spendocrats would rather see disaster victims suffer, than lose control over their Bank of China, no-limit Platinum Credit Card they have already used to drive this nation into the deepest debt hole in U.S. history. Harry Reid and the Corruptocrats would rather see disaster victims suffer, than cut waste in the form of worthless subsidies to 'Green-Energy' boondoggles run by political cronies and shady campaign contributors. Harry Reid and the Democrats will continue to pursue their reckless Millions in new taxes for the "rich", but not one penny less in government spending policy, until they are finally turned out of office in 2012, and made a permanent minority. Harry Reid is a partisan hack.

Why are some of you griping about FEMA's response to disasters? We've had a ton of disasters within the past year and the one constant in all of them is praise for FEMA coming from both Republican and Democratic governors. There's not been a single complaint except for Perry's faux one about his fires when he was already receiving help. The secret to this is President Obama's excellent choice for director, Craig Fugate, a man whose skills were burnished in the hurricanes of Florida. He is truly apolitical--just a professional who gets the job done well.

What happened tp all the money paid back from the bailouts. Multi billions got paid back. Why isn't that money available or is that money for the demorats reelection war chest. The demorats have now turned into the partry of "NO".

"I think they are overlooking a third option where the President throws some executive orders around and maybe has some lawmakers ordered to come to Washington to do what they were elected to do."

I think President Obama learned an important lesson during the debt ceiling debacle: don't get involved with these guys--let the burden fall on their shoulders for getting the job done. He's been wise to stay out of it so far--wouldn't have done any good for him to be involved. Inexcusable behavior on the part of Congress--both sides--but more heavily on the Republicans.

What in the world are you talking about? bail out money into war chests??? Every cent that goes into those war chests--either side--has to be publicly accounted for. Bail out money paid into the Treasury--not the DNC. And Treasury has to account for it.